Cialis
Payday loans
type=

Defunct Metro Grill Restaurant Owners Lose Big Lawsuit

Posted on January 16th, 2009 6:37pm by Nancy Nichols
Filed under Closings, Foodie People, Restaurant News

Remember Jaden’s turned Metro Grill a few blocks south of Knox Street on the service road of Central Expressway? It looks like owners Mark and Dirk Kelcher tried to pull a fast one and got caught.

Long, 41-page document, story short: After the Kelcher brothers closed Metro Grill and allegedly filed for bankruptcy, they “with the assistance of their parents, their parents’ company EDM Associates (“EDM”), Master Sign (a company owned by Mark’s girlfriend’s father’s friend), and various day laborers hired from a Sam’s Club parking lot, removed vast amounts of items from the leased premises to a variety of locations around the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.”

It gets worse: “In common parlance, the lease space was “trashed.” As described below, not only was all personal property, including kitchen equipment, restaurant furniture, furnishings, and alcohol inventory removed, but even doors, windows, hardware, sinks, toilets, urinals, exterior and interior light fixtures, ceiling tiles, and massive HVAC units were removed (the latter, by crane, from the rooftop). According to the credible evidence, the removal was executed in a highly destructive manner.”

That’s a big no-no. And it was a big lawsuit. Spoiler alert: Owners Mark and Dirk Kelcher, and their parents company EDM, were ordered to pay their former landlord, Knox Street Promenade, $400,000. Put another couple of logs on the fire and read all about it.

9 comments

  1. That is fascinating reading. Question: How is it the Kelcher’s are presumed to be able to pay $400K in 10 days if they have filed for bankruptcy? If you have nothing, you have nothing (though it seems they do have something). I guess I’m just asking how this all works.

    @ 9:40 am on January 17, 2009

  2. I would assume that the civil judgement in the bankruptcy court might be the first step in what could end with hindering a secured creditor charges in a District Court and those would not be civil charges.

    @ 11:21 am on January 17, 2009

  3. Jon – I just read the whole opinion and I agree, these guys are in deep doodoo and may in fact be mopping up doodoo in a federal prison bathroom in the near future.

    TLS – That’s why the judge made the Kelcher brothers, their corporation (i.e. the bankruptcy debtor) and their dad’s company “jointly and severally” liable for the $400K. That way, if the bankruptcy debtor doesn’t pay (and as you rightly point out, it probably can’t), the court can look to the two brothers and their dad’s company for full payment. The Kelchers haven’t filed *personal* bankruptcy as far as I know, so if they and/or their dad’s company don’t pay the $400K within 10 days, the bankruptcy trustee and Knox Street Promenade can go back into court and start the process for levying against their assets (e.g. bank accounts, stocks, non-exempt real property, vehicles, etc.) Their dad is lucky he wasn’t put on the hook personally for the contempt judgment. It looks to me like he was very much involved.

    @ 4:30 pm on January 17, 2009

  4. That is terrible news. I always liked the brothers and thought they would come back, Phoenix-like, just many owners of unsuccessful restaurant ventures before them.

    @ 5:29 pm on January 17, 2009

  5. You mean Jaden’s?

    @ 3:47 pm on January 18, 2009

  6. thanks

    @ 3:59 pm on January 18, 2009

  7. Funny quote from a D article on Top Rail Ballroom, which these guys apparently owned at one point: “The Kelchers aren’t dumb.” I think they demonstrated otherwise.

    @ 4:16 pm on January 20, 2009

  8. the two Kelcher twins and their father JACK have always been BAD people.. they’ve been criminals for years– INSURANCE FRAUD, THEFT.. what wouldn’t they do for a dollar???

    @ 10:10 am on January 25, 2009

  9. I know this cast of characters. I feel sorry in a way for Mark and Dirk. I feel fairly certain that their thinking was likely guided by their father, Jack, who seems to think he’s smarter than everyone else. The sad thing is that Mark and Dirk should know him better by now. A $400,000 lesson can provide a great education.

    @ 1:01 am on July 18, 2009